Photos Kevin Spacey didn’t you want you to see

ACTOR Kevin Spacey finally came out last week - in the worst possible circumstances.

The Oscar-winner issued a brief public statement announcing that he "now choose[s] to live as a gay man," after fellow actor Anthony Rapp accused the star of groping him at a party in 1986 - when Spacey was 26 and Rapp was just 14.

Spacey was widely criticised for his approach to the scandal, with many suggesting he was trying to deflect attention from what would be the first of many sexual assault allegations by finally confirming his much-rumoured homosexuality.

Spacey's sexuality had been one of Hollywood's worst-kept secrets for many years.

Way back in the year 2000, a series of photos emerged showing the then-41-year-old and a younger mystery man canoodling at a Los Angeles hiking spot.

In the series of photos, Spacey could be seen at a newsstand before heading to a restaurant, where he met up with the unnamed man. The pair then made their way to a hiking trail, where they were photographed up on the hillside for about an hour.

During that time, the pair became more physically intimate, with Spacey snapped massaging the man and laying with his head in his lap.

Tabloid publication Star ran the photos at the time, and in a 2014 article, Gawker noted that they were then almost impossible to find online - resorting to buying an original copy of the magazine on eBay to read the full article.

"For two hours, the pair chatted, held hands, cuddled, stroked and massaged each other hidden behind a rock in Oakland Memorial Park near Topanga, close to where Spacey grew up," the original Star article stated.

Spacey and friend go hiking. Picture by: Bauergriffin.com

Star also quoted an "eyewitness" to the encounter, who stated: "It was a very intimate rendezvous. At one point, Kevin's head was in the boy's lap and later the young guy put his arms round Kevin and cuddled him ... Let me put it this way - if my wife saw me with another man like that, she would be divorcing me."

Star magazine published 13 photos in all - which Gawker reprinted in 2014 - and the magazine's editor boasted that there were other images too explicit to print.

"Mr Spacey will be pleased that we left out one or two images that were far more graphic. We showed considerable restraint," Star editor Tony Frost said at the time.

The pair, with Spacey in white, were photographed getting closer on a secluded part of the hiking trail. Picture by: Bauergriffin.com

Spacey did not publicly comment when the photos were first published, but his publicist issued the following statement to other outlets: "He has said all he is going to say on the subject and people are going to believe what they want to believe. We don't have any further comment."

Conjecture about Spacey's sexuality - and his efforts to conceal it - was kickstarted by a 1997 Esquire cover story titled "Kevin Spacey has a secret", which strongly suggested the actor was gay. After the cover hit newsstands, Spacey's agent vowed that none of his other clients would pose for Esquire again.

"Before the Esquire article, Spacey was relatively unguarded about his sexual orientation ... Afterward, however, he was transformed," Maer Roshan later wrote in the New Yorker.

"He began being photographed with a series of attractive women, talking to Playboy about how the gay rumours had improved his sex life ('Women want to be the one to turn me around. I let them.') and generally proclaiming his heterosexuality to anyone who'd listen," Roshan wrote.